A cover, with a recommendation from Vernor Vinge.
Ventus is is the solo debut of author Karl Schroeder and pretty much introduced the world to the concept of thalience. Ventus mainly takes place on the titular planet, basically created with a combination of A.I. Is a Crapshoot and Terraforming with a health dose of nanomachines.The main story follows a young Jordan Mason, who, surprisingly, is a stone mason. Jordan lives in a pre-industrial society which is watched by god-like machines called Winds. Jordan has recently began having visions of far away places, living and experiencing everything in the body of one only known as Armiger. However, he soon meets a woman who calls herself Lady Calandria May and her cohort Axel.
Soon, you'll be questioning what it means to be human, how cool it would be to have transdermal armor, and if human-like Artificial Intelligence is ever possible if it's our slave.
Provides examples Of:
- Being Human Sucks: Calandria May eventually figures this out at the very end, when she becomes the white bast
- Bio-Augmentation: May and Axel both have subdermal armor, allowing their skin to be cut but not much more, up to and including decapitation attempts. Armiger has even more obvious versions, generating his own nanomachines and so forth.
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Morphs, who aren't actually morphs of anything. That's just what they do.
- Humans Are Psychic in the Future: Subverted. Lady May and Axel can communicate through implanted cell phones and Armiger/jordan experience one another's life through their implants.
